


If I Can't Do This On My Own

by SemiSolace



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 22:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20454791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemiSolace/pseuds/SemiSolace
Summary: Thanos snapping his fingers and killing half of the universe was one of those huge changes, one that was felt everywhere and one with devastating consequences. Peter Parker falling on the half of the universe that survived was not a change like that, but it took its toll all the same.Or:There isn't much left for Tony Stark to avenge, but there's more than enough remaining that needs fixing.





	If I Can't Do This On My Own

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!   
Just a few things to clear up before reading! I'm afraid I don't really read the comics and I don't know all the details from all the films, so sorry in advance if there are any inaccuracies! This lack of knowledge also applies to the American education system- a huge thanks to NoahLikesHummus for helping me figure out what to do there!!- so again, sorry.   
Oh, and the title is lyrics from 'Mr. Man' by Stephen

The sky on Titan was orange. Somewhere on the dusty horizon, some source of light choked its way through the smog and cast long, grimy shadows through the rubble. It didn't look natural. It didn't look anything like Earth.

Earth was at least familiar. The battle, the things it left behind. The betrayal and pain from Earth would hurt the same way, leave the same scars, but it still felt different, here. Worse.

It was the kind of place Tony Stark could imagine the world ending from. 

The battle was recent- some wounds were still bleeding sluggishly, pain still spiked sharp and raw. Tony wasn't even sure the adrenaline had completely faded yet. He could feel the weariness- familiar like an old friend- settling into his bones, but his mind wouldn't stop working. Waiting. 

It wasn't over yet. 

The sky was orange and it reminded him of embers. The fire had long been stamped out and all that was left was the dying. The fading. The waiting. 

The ruins already looked old. If one couldn't be bothered to look too closely- and why would they- maybe they'd think that the destruction had happened at the same time, with the same cause, the same story.

He thought of stones glinting in a gauntlet. He thought of the shock and the fear and the waiting that followed. Maybe the destruction did have the same story, in the end.   
No one had talked much, after Thanos had vanished. There hadn't been words. They'd lost, they'd failed and they could only hope that somewhere else, someone else could be enough instead. 

The shadows lingered, the silence stretched on and the smog rolled in the distance. Tony glanced at Peter, and felt his heart clench. 

The kid wasn't hurt badly. Not physically. As soon as the battle ended, he'd demanded a report from the suit, and fear was replaced with relief and after that, he just felt tired. There was no telling if the kid would be okay beyond that. Scrapes and bruises would heal quickly enough. But the kind of hurt that had turned the boy's face chalky white? That took longer to heal. Words wouldn't fix it. Not now, at least. Tony would know, Earth had taught him that. Titan was teaching Peter that. 

It wasn't fucking fair. Peter had been so, so cheerful. Even after the incident with the plane, the kid had managed shaky smiles, he'd regained the bounce in his step, even if sometimes there'd be dark circles under his eyes. 

But then the kid had climbed aboard a spaceship and Tony had known, somewhere amongst the shock and anger and stress, that the shadows in the kid's eyes might linger longer, this time. It was everything he'd never wanted for Peter. He'd wanted so much better for the boy with the bright eyes.

There was a slight breeze. It carried the smell of smoke and the stench of blood. The price of losing, the cost of trying. 

There were a thousand other things he should have been thinking about, in those long moments. He should have been thinking of the reason the time stone was gone, he should have been thinking of the finality of the one outcome that would let them win. But instead, his mind was focused on the fact that Pepper was still waiting for him, that the Mind Stone was still lodged in Vision's head and that Peter Parker would need to be helped, the second they got back home and-

And somewhere amongst it all, the world ended between one heartbeat and the next. 

The orange light didn't flicker, there weren't tremors in the ground beneath them, the air didn't suddenly go cold. There weren't even screams. 

Just a surprised squeak from the alien in green with the curious expression as she turned to dust and blew away in the breeze. Just like that. 

The waiting was over. 

He never saw the way Peter's face went slack with shock after the alien woman died first, but he'd imagine it in his nightmares later for years to come. He'd turned to Strange, not sure why, only to find the wizard waiting for him with the answer to the question Tony hadn't even known he'd wanted to ask. 

There was an awful acceptance on Strange's face. A calmness, a stillness. But his eyes were sad, solemn and a thousand other things. "This," he'd said softly, seriously. "this was the better way." And then he was gone too. 

He hadn't realised that he'd cared for Strange, before the loss. The man had walked through a portal and Tony had followed him into a nightmare, and left Pepper behind. He'd been nothing but short tempered and rude and he'd said that he'd be willing to let the kid die, if it meant protecting the Time Stone. But he hadn't let any of them die. He'd lost the Time Stone. And he'd fought beside them, and that had been enough to earn respect, earn understanding, somehow. 

And it was all crumbling now. The better way? Words of a dead man. 

Once, as Spiderman, Peter had found a lost child, separated from his mother in the crowded city streets. The child had walked up to several people, expectantly, then had their hope crushed each time as he realised that each stranger wasn't his mother. Then he'd approached people timidly. Then he'd stopped walking and cried. 

Spiderman had swung in and saved the day, of course. He'd spent twenty minutes wandering around the streets with the kid on his shoulders, making him laugh with stupid stories until they'd found his frantic mother, who was sobbing and yelling hoarsely. 

Tony only knew the story because the kid had spent about half an hour rambling excitedly about the sticker the kid had given to the hero who'd saved him as a thank-you present to Happy, who'd then complained about it to Tony in passing, which was the only warning Tony got before he was treated to the story in snippets as the kid fiddled with new designs for web shooters in the lab.

At the time, Tony had laughed fondly, and wondered what to do with the not entirely unexpected pride he'd felt. This time, the story filled him with an agonising realisation that this would be the moment that Spiderman lost that light, that innocence. 

Now, on Titan, Peter ran towards each of the Guardians- was that what they'd called themselves?- like he could hold them together. Like he could stop whatever Thanos had done, if only he reached them in time. Then he stopped running and walked. Then there was no one left to walk to.

By the time he turned towards Tony, the kid was crying. He was the lost child. And Tony really doubted that he could be the hero the kid needed. He'd just watched and he hated himself for it.

"M-Mr Stark?" He asked in a very, very small voice. It was almost drowned out by the silence.

The 'are you going to disappear too', he didn't ask and he didn't need to. Tony understood. Just like the blue alien woman, he'd watched, numb. The weight of knowing they could do nothing was crushing. 

Peter had been the only one to move. He'd run and run and each and every person he'd tried to save had crumbled to ash right before he could so much as touch them, and maybe he'd lost a little piece of himself every time. 

It looked like it. 

"T-they're gone, Mr S-Stark." The boy sobbed, and Tony knew that the kid wouldn't be the same after this with a cold, aching certainty. "I-I... They're dead." 

And Tony saw the kid's legs tremble, like the weight of the world had just settled onto his shoulders. He moved just in time to stop Peter from falling like a puppet with its strings cut. It ended up as an awkward half-hug, half-holding-up the teenager as the kid cried against the broken metal of the Iron Man suit. 

It wasn't okay. None of it was. But for the first time since the woman's sharp cry of surprise had been cut off, something on the planet with the orange sky felt real. The kid, shuddering from the force of his sobbing, and the blue woman, watching. 

"I got you, kiddo." He said, instead of lying and saying everything was okay. He couldn't promise that, but he this, at least, he could do. 

The only response the kid gave was hugging him slightly tighter. It didn't feel like enough, the kid was crying and there was nothing he could say, but it would have to do. 

The day the world ended, Tony wasn't forced to watch his kid die. But he was forced to watch the kid break, and maybe that was worse. Maybe that was better. 

Sometimes, broken things could be fixed. Sometimes they couldn't. 

The sky was orange and clouds of ash crowded the horizon, and the silence was only broken by the sound of a boy crying. Against all odds, they'd survived. For whatever reason, they'd been given a tomorrow.

A tomorrow, a future and a chance to get the lost child home.

* * *

The ship was cold. 

They simply didn't have the energy to waste on heating. Peter hadn't realised that there was a very real chance that they might not make it back home until they'd started patching up the ship, scraping ruins together and staggering through the motions of moving on. 

Everything was stretched thin. The hallways were dim, even to his heightened eyesight, the chill crept around the echoing hallways and sometimes, at night, when the whirring of the ship's engine was just a whispering rumble, and he could hear the blankness where space circled them. 

They drifted through the ship like ghosts, in the first few days after the world ended. There was nothing left to say. Only surviving and the silence that followed. 

He wasn't an idiot, though. He saw the way Mr Stark would look at him, and get that expression on his face that meant that he was looking for something to say, but couldn't find the words. It was the same look he'd had in those first months after May had found out about Spiderman, and it was the look that would pass over his face whenever Peter wasn't as good as hiding the lingering traces of nightmares as he'd thought he'd been. 

And Peter was painfully aware that they were all grieving. The strange, blue alien had lost her sister, from the sounds of things, and was quiet and withdrawn, only speaking when necessary. Peter didn't know her well at all, and he hadn't known her before, so he didn't know if it was a grief-thing or a scary-blue-alien-lady thing. 

But Mr Stark? Sometimes, even after the Incident with the plane, and Peter had started to visit Mr Stark more often, there had been bad days. Days where the normal sarcasm was laced with bitterness and smiles were few and distant. Sometimes, there'd be dark circles under his eyes, and Peter would see his hands shaking.

Tony Stark had been grieving even before they got on that ship. 

And he'd recognise the expression on his mentor's face. The dark, haunted expression, because he'd hunted for it in his memories once he'd realised that it was familiar. It was from the argument after the Ferry. When the idea of Peter dying had been brought up, that exact expression had been there, for just a moment. Tortured guilt, depths of self-loathing and remorse. 

He wasn't the sole cause of that turmoil, he knew that somewhere, deep down. But he'd seen the anger on Mr Stark's face when he realised that Peter had stayed on the ship. It was only for a moment, only fleeting, but it had been enough for Peter to know that he'd crossed a line again, exactly like the Ferry Incident.

He was done with making others feel bad. From Ned, to May to Mr Stark. All that pity. All that pain. All for him. 

So he could deal with this himself, really. It would be fine. Mr Stark had more than enough to be dealing with, without all of Peter's problems being thrown in his face.

Peter wasn't really the best at hiding his nightmares. May had always known, as if by instinct if he'd had a nightmare. Ned could normally guess. Mr Stark would be able to tell too, if he saw. If. 

He was better at hiding from people than he was hiding his grief and his nightmares. 

The first few days: the ship, the silence and space. 

And, of course, the nightmares. 

Sometimes, he'd be standing there, frozen as a gunshot rang out like thunder, and watching his uncle crumple in the stillness. Sometimes, he'd claw his way out of rubble with the taste of iron, salt and stale water in his throat. 

Most often though, he'd stand and watch ash shift in the breeze, seeing faces that weren't there while the sky blazed by a funeral pyre. 

Every time, without fail, Karen would run one of those meditation tapes that were supposed to calm him down, then advise him to tell Mr Stark in as careful a tone as an AI could have, before playing white noise to drown out the silence of space and the whirring of the ship and the clamour of his thoughts. 

But one time, it was different. He'd clawed himself out of a nightmare of orange skies and faces morphing from defeat to terror to ash, and his senses were still screaming at him when he woke up, and as he fought for air, his mind was wondering if he'd be next, if it'd hurt to slowly flake away amongst the sound of his own harsh breathing.

So he could be forgiven, perhaps for not hearing the footsteps until Mr Stark was already in the room, and he didn't have time to scramble away or regain any fraction of composure. He did, however, have enough time to see the cycle of his mentor's face: confusion to horror to something that wasn't quite pity but was too shadowed to be simple understanding. 

"I'm fine." He said thickly, past the lump in his throat. "This is nothing, Mr Stark. Really." He probably wasn't very convincing, although he really needed to be, because he was still gasping for breath and furiously scrubbing away the tears on his face. 

"It isn't, and you're not." The hero said shortly, crossing over to Peter in several short strides, then sitting down besides him. "But you don't have to be okay, because you know what? Things aren't fine. I won't lie to you, they might not be fine for a good while." 

"But-" Peter started, and he hadn't even really wanted to talk, his throat was still all scratchy from crying so maybe it was for the better that Mr Stark interrupted him. 

"Nope. We're going to take this in turns and I'll try and be a responsible adult. Well, I'm not a responsible adult, but you know what I mean."

There was a moment of silence. Maybe Peter was supposed to laugh, but it didn't seem like it. Maybe Iron Man was just looking for his next words. Maybe it was just a silence.

"What Thanos did? That was devastating. He will have changed the world- every world out there with what he did. No one will be okay after this, and no one will be forced to pretend to be okay. Shit. This really doesn't sound as good right now as it sounded in my head. What I'm trying to say is, is that it's okay not to be okay." 

There was something inherently reassuring, Peter decided in that moment, about hearing an adult say that something was okay. It made it more believable. Better, somehow, even when it should be impossible. 

"We lost. It happens. It always sucks when it happens, and it always hurts. But you can get back up, you can live through it. You're a tough kid, even if you don't feel like it right now, or for a long while yet-" 

And then Peter's voice decided to work again. "Aren't you-" 

He wouldn't have seen it if not for his heightened senses. The moment where Mr Stark tensed, like he was readying himself for a verbal smack to the face, like he was trying not to flinch. 

Peter was looking for a word, though. It wasn't quite angry, or disappointed, or tired, but something in between all three. He couldn't find the word, in the end. 

"Aren't you mad that I snuck on to the ship in the first place? Even after you told me to go back? And-" 

The billionaire huffed out a laugh, stopping Peter in his tracks. "Honestly, kid? I wasn't really mad. Just worried." 

"Like the Ferry Incident?" 

There's a tired smile on a tired face. "Yeah, like the Ferry Incident. But this was different, more important. I'll be honest here for a moment, I can't blame you for getting on that ship. You knew staying would make a difference and you made your choice. I'd rather you'd stayed on Earth, it might have been safer. But then, we were all fucked one way or another, so maybe you made the right call." 

The silence stretched on. Even the machines whirring in the background seemed quieter. 

Then, in a small voice. "I'm sorry for making you have to do this." 

"Do what?" For the first time, his voice sounded dark. Suspicious. 

"Deal with me. Being like this." 

"Kid," And later, this memory would be a comfort, even if it didn't quite feel like it at the time. "no one is 'dealing' with you. I'm trying to help and I'm doing it because I want to and I care. It's really as simple as that. I promise." 

"Really?" 

"I promise." 

Then there was a quiet again. Not quite a silence, but something louder. Because the machines were still going and his eyes were starting to hurt and the words that had been said instead of a goodbye inside his head were screaming. 

Then he was crying too hard to see properly and it was like a storm, and the only thing keeping him steady were the arms wrapped around him and the idea that one day, objectively speaking and in the far future, it would be okay. 

But for now? 

"I-I didn't e-even know their _n-names_."

There was surviving and the sounds that filled the silences. 

There were the motions of moving on.

* * *

Later, much, much later Peter would realise that despite it all, Mr Stark had been almost calm. Maybe even prepared. 

He'd been waiting for the moment that Peter would hurt enough to hear those words, broken enough to need them. 

He'd been waiting, watching and preparing for a long time. It made those words, that promise feel more real. Something solid in all the ash, in all the space.

Mr Stark cared.

* * *

Nebula had watched, and listened. She'd stayed in the shadows, silent and pale, like a ghost. It hadn't felt like her place to step in. 

She wasn't made for comforting. She was made to be sharper, tougher, nastier. She was made for hurting, for breaking, not helping, not healing. 

Nebula was made for revenge, for blood and for bitterness. She'd been forged from it. 

But these days, it felt less and less like she was made for anything. There was just an emptiness, now. A long, dark tunnel, that ended with Thanos dying. 

And there was hope at the end, a rough, raw sort of hope, too jagged to be a comfort of any kind, but it was at the end of the tunnel all the same. A fragile, ugly thing that said that it could all be undone, that her sister could still be saved.

That little light was getting further and further away every day. 

She didn't let it stop her. She went through the movements of living every day, because what she felt had never stopped her before, and she wouldn't let it stop her now. 

Still.

She justified what she did next like this: it was a sort of undoing of what Thanos had done. Fixing something he'd broken. 

She'd need allies, she told herself, in the killing of Thanos and the aftermath, and for allies, there had to be trust, and for trust, there had to be a start to it all. 

The ship was cold, and her footsteps echoed. The boy heard her coming. She made sure of it. He had time to leave if he wanted to, and Stark had time to pause from where he was working on his suit. 

Stark didn't say anything. Peter turned with a small greeting. 

"I overheard." She announced, instead of a greeting. The words hung heavy in the chill in the room. 

Slowly, almost like he was fighting it, the boy started to tense. 

"If," she rasped urgently, "it bothers you that you didn't know them well, I can tell you their names. And what I know about them." 

She was awkward, too blunt, perhaps, but that wasn't the reason for the sudden stillness. 

Peter cleared his throat. He looked around the room, the cold metal walls, the tangles of wires and multitude of lights.

Tony said nothing, only watched. Nebula could tell that he'd step in the second he thought it was necessary, but was holding back for the moment. Careful. The choice was they boy's, and his alone. 

Peter cleared his throat again. "Yeah," he whispered, "I'd like that." 

Suddenly, unceremoniously, she moved to sit on the floor. Peter blinked, stared for a second too long, then mimicked her. 

Stark shifted closer. Not enough to be intrusive, but enough to make it clear he was listening. A protective presence at the edges of it all. 

"I knew them from when my sis-" She hadn't expected the pain that came from speaking, and that was the only reason her voice failed her. "From when Gamora travelled with them."

This was harder than she'd thought, talking about it. But she'd promised, although not in words. Not out loud. 

"They were a group of fools." She said harshly. Then softened, slightly. The steel shifted into grief, into loss. "But the better kind of fools, otherwise Gamora would not have... tolerated them." 

It wasn't perfect, it wasn't what she'd meant to say at all. There were things she couldn't say, things she didn't have the words to explain. 

But she was talking, she could think that maybe she was helping someone, somehow. 

She spoke, she faltered, and she kept going. The two from Earth sat, and listened. The tunnel seemed shorter, if just for a moment.

* * *

The ship was still cold, space was still empty and crushing, but the silence wasn't so unbearable once it was filled with stories. 

Nebula eventually ran out of stories about the Guardians of the Galaxy, as she'd called them. She talked about Gamora next, because once she'd started, she couldn't seem to stop. Then, bitterly, furiously, she'd run out of stories about her sister.

She'd moved on to talking about herself. It hadn't taken her long to learn to leave out the worst parts, because Peter would pale long before Tony's face grew dark, and she'd know she needed to stop. 

Iron Man spoke of suits and hours in workshops with robots. He spoke of the people waiting for him on Earth, and the fun parts. Outsmarting political rivals, leaving fellow inventors in the dust, teasing allies and small victories that came easily enough not to leave a bitter feel to the memory. 

But it was Peter's stories that they heard the most. There were science fairs with someone called Ben. There was watching shows with May, and May's bad cooking. There were adventures with Ned, debates with a Michelle and there was Spiderman. 

May would eventually give up and order food instead. Ned would wait and talk and listen no matter what happened. Michelle would sometimes smile and admit that they were friends. Spiderman saved the day and a lost boy went back to his family. 

There was a home, in Peter's stories. 

They didn't talk about the bad things. 

Nebula didn't talk about echoing throne rooms and cold gazes. She didn't talk about killing and losing again and again and again. She didn't talk about how cold the metal limbs had been in those first few months. 

Tony didn't talk about the fear, the paranoia. The long nights with the sound of metal, the sick feeling that crept back again every time he stared out the window and into space for too long. He didn't talk about the arguments or the divide that waited for him back on Earth. He didn't mention traitors or liars or murderers. 

Peter didn't talk about the crystal clear ringing of a gunshot. He didn't talk about being crushed or the smell of fire and crunch of sand beneath his feet as he ran and ran and ran. He didn't talk about Titan and the ashes. 

They didn't share the bad stories. They were already living through the worst of it.

* * *

Sometimes, there were whispers in the stillness. 

There weren't days on the ship. There was sleeping and being awake, and time flowed sluggishly between the two states. 

Sleeping was awful, because the nightmares and the memories crowded in, tearing open wounds that hadn't even been given time to heal. The pain was raw, renewed and the cycle began again. 

Waking up was worse. The nightmares were harder to fight off once they were real. The good memories had the bad memories mixed in with them, and there was only so long someone could go pretending that they weren't thinking about it. 

Reality had found too many ways to be painful, recently. 

Peter was asleep, ears full of white noise and safe, for the moment, from nightmares. Tony and Nebula were awake, and several rooms away, and talking quietly, just in case. Like it was a secret.

There was a brutal reality creeping in on them. The ship was cold, space was empty and their resources were running low.

"Our supplies won't last much longer. We might not make it back." 

Nebula blinked. She already knew this. What she didn't know, or could only guess at, was what Stark's point was. 

They'd all known, on some level, that the supplies wouldn't last forever when they patched up the ship in the first place. They'd all done a good job at not precisely ignoring it, but acting despite it. 

Pretending.

It was still there though, one of those things that they hadn't talked about. It'd sat in the shadows, where the silence and things unsaid still lingered.

"We prioritise the kid. His metabolism doesn't matter- he gets the food he needs. He has to live. Non-negotiable." There was the same fierceness that the man had used to face down Thanos, now. And the same gentleness she'd seen when the man comforted Peter after his nightmares. 

Nebula didn't want to watch either of her human friends fade away. Starve and die in the aftermath of a tragedy. In the time they'd been travelling, she'd become fond of them both. Maybe she'd even admit she cared. 

Grief and pain and losing drove people together.

"Thanos won't kill another child." She vowed instead. 

Stark didn't smile, but his shoulders visibly slumped in relief as he nodded, and the effect was the same. 

Peter slept on, unaware.

* * *

The talk Peter never heard was the turning point. Before, the hours were laden with memories and words heavy with meaning and a low, constant thrum of fear. But the last stretch of space would always be a blur to Peter.

All at once, rations were smaller than ever, and they were all losing weight, all feeling the sharp pains of hunger. 

If he ever thought to check that everyone was having the same rations, then it'd seem like it, because Nebula and Mr Stark were careful. If they had anything to say about it, he'd never know. 

Then he'd blink, and Tony would be showing him to record messages with the Iron Spider suit, and with a heart feeling the same weight that'd been present on Titan, he said his goodbyes. Again and again and again. 

Until his eyes were heavy and there were sobs building in his throat, and Iron Man's hand was heavy on his shoulder, a reminder that they were still alive, still fighting. There was still a chance, still hope. 

Just in case, Mr Stark had said, just in case.

And he'd remember thinking that they couldn't' die. Not like this. They'd survived everything else, it had to all be worth it. Somewhere, somehow. It had to be. They had to all make it back. They had to. 

(And still, he'd started to fear.)

And then one day, Mr Stark didn't wake up. There was a faint pulse, but he was too pale, too still. He wasn't dead, Peter realised in the few seconds before the hysteria kicked in, but dying.

They all were, really. There wasn't any denying it anymore. 

Nebula would tell him later, that he'd put everything together pretty quickly after that. That there had been screaming and he'd been lashing out. That he'd been angry and frightened and betrayed. 

He wouldn't remember it. He'd remember his mentor's pale face, a slow, cold horror and the ringing in his ears. Then everything blurred, and snapped into focus at what had to be later, because he remembered the glow of space through the window he'd taken to avoiding, and the feeling of cool fingers on his shoulder.

Then everything went dark.

* * *

In the end, both humans had to be carried off the ship. Neither had been conscious to see their planet come into view. 

Pepper hadn't known what she'd expected, but it hadn't been this. She'd been at the front of the crowd who'd gathered to see the ship land. 

The eternity of waiting had been stretched and slowed into those agonising last moments. There were a thousand different outcomes, and each one had been a torment in its own way.

The knowledge she had weighed just as heavy as the fear. 

Two impossible futures. Two lives. Two truths. 

The doors opened. She held her breath and hoped, feeling like a child making a wish, but doing it anyway, even though the time for answering such things had passed. 

Her lungs burned. Her eyes watered.

Peter was carried out first. Then Tony. Then a blue woman, another alien, who staggered out on her own feet but was supported by Carol Danvers. 

A shaky breath. 

Both of them had survived whatever Thanos had done. It was more than she'd dared to hope. Then her ragged breathing turned into sobs, and she marched through the crowd to follow the two into the building where they'd get the medical help they needed.

She ignored the looks and the questions, as she had been doing for a long time now, and didn't look back. 

The words she'd need to say stayed trapped inside, too ugly to be given voice just yet. There was a miracle here, something precious. Both of them had somehow survived. 

Already, the silver lining was tarnished. 

But she couldn't bring herself to say it and was almost selfishly glad that she didn't have to, just yet.

* * *

They kept the two in the same room. There were enough empty rooms for them to have six rooms each, but it was easier to monitor like this. There weren't really enough doctors to spare.

Besides, Pepper didn't want either of them to be alone when they woke up. Between her, Nebula, Happy and Rhodes, she'd doubted that they'd be that unlucky. The doctors bustled about. 

Steve and his group lingered outside, but she never saw them actually enter. She wondered if the guilt was still stopping them, if they felt that it wasn't their place to push past those doors, back over the line they'd crossed. She was too tired to care, too drained to savagely hope so. Her wishes had all been spent.

Days passed. 

The deathly pallor faded, bit by bit. They almost looked peaceful, then. Sleeping, instead of unconscious. 

Malnutrition, the doctors whispered. Lack of sleep, they said. 

Nebula had said as much, blunt and brutal. Food had run out, oxygen had been starting to go too, and they'd both decided that they'd do whatever it took to keep Peter alive. Pepper had suspected as much. She couldn't imagine a world in which Tony did anything different. 

The first time Peter woke up, no one was there to witness it. Rather, Happy would wander into the room to visit, worn by the guilt and the pacing and the worry, and had seen the kid staring at the ceiling. 

Peter hadn't looked like the kid they'd known. He looked like someone else had taken his place, and returned from space without him. His eyes were vacant. There was no life in them, no joy, no fear, just the impression that he was somewhere far away where no one could reach him. Where no one could save him. 

He wouldn't respond to any of them. He didn't ever tell any of them that he was seeing orange skies instead of the clinically clean white stretch of the hospital, smelling dust instead of the chemicals. 

He drifted back to sleep in the silence. 

It was good, the doctors told them later. He was recovering quicker than they'd thought. Tony would follow soon. They'd both be awake properly. Pepper just noted dully that no one made any promises about 'okay' anymore.

She supposed there'd been enough things broken for now. 

She was there to watch Tony claw his way back to Earth. She watched his eyes open, then slowly focus on her face. She helped him as he struggled to sit up, weak arms trembling from the unexpected strain. 

His voice took several tries to work. Rough from disuse, his first words were unrecognisable. Eventually, in a painful whisper, he managed an 'I love you' like he still thought he was dying. 

And she smiled, despite it all. He was back, her Tony.

Then, a sudden surge of movement. A cough. "The kid?" 

His eyes followed her gaze to the quiet bed in the corner. "He's alive." She promised. "He hasn't woken up again yet, but the doctors say it'll be a matter of days." 

Iron Man smiled tiredly. "Good." 

There was a beat of silence. "I thought-" 

He didn't need to finish. She already knew it all. The fear of losing someone else. She'd wondered every single day if Tony would be stepping off that ship, and had tried to picture a future where he didn't. She'd failed, every single time. 

He didn't need to repeat those conversations from the dead of night from what seemed like years ago. His fear of failing the boy he'd grown to care for was almost tangible. The fear of losing, the fear of this reality had plagued him until he was living in it, and she understood it all. 

She understood and she had her answer and she took his hand. 

There weren't really words, for those feelings and their answers. 

The closest they came was holding on and simply knowing. 

There was sunlight streaming through the curtains, and it lit up the silence for them.

* * *

The first thing Peter had asked when he woke up properly was a hoarse whisper that sliced through the silence. All of them were huddled in the room, slumped in the plastic visitor chairs and they'd been waiting for it. 

"My Aunt May?" 

Pepper's heart broke before she even answered. 

"I'm sorry." She said, instead of 'she's gone'. 

For a moment, there was no response from the bundle of blankets. Then, a very, very small "Oh." 

There was a heartbeat of silence. The calm before the storm. 

It was the most horrible noise she'd ever heard, the sound of Peter sobbing in that tiny hospital room. 

She wished that there was anything she could say that would be a comfort to the boy. But all her words were answers to questions that hadn't been asked yet. There was an unspoken question that no one was going to voice just yet. Who else had died? 

And she knew the exact number. Because in those long days of waiting, she'd checked. Every friend Peter had mentioned in every happy story she remembered. 

Ned. MJ. Even the one Peter called Flash, who didn't sound all that nice. 

All of them were gone.

So no, there were no words that could help. No 'sorry' would bring them back. So she slid the box of tissues closer to the boy who'd lost everything, wrapped an arm around his shaking shoulders and let him cry in silence.

* * *

For one, awful moment, he'd thought it was a joke. He'd stared at Pepper and expected her sad face to twist in to a smile and add a 'she's on her way here to scream at you for getting on the ship in the first place' to the 'I'm sorry', because that had to be the only way that sentence could end. 

But logically he knew that Pepper wouldn't do that. He knew the words she would've used were 'she's alive', not 'I'm sorry'. He knew it and he hated it and he could feel the first sob coming. 

Because even when they'd been dying in space, even on that cold, creaking ship, he didn't let himself even imagine a world where there was no one waiting for him back on Earth. He'd said goodbyes for them, because he'd thought that they'd be alive to hear it even when he was gone. 

He'd come to terms with the idea of letting them go, somehow. But that had been the thought that he'd be the one to die. He'd be the one to leave. That kind of letting go felt different, because he could tell himself that at least they'd live to be happy again. 

He'd imagined a future for them. Not for himself. That was the worst of it. 

What had Nebula and Mr Stark nearly sacrificed everything on that ship for? For him? He didn't even have anything to return to. What was the point?

It didn't feel like he could be the one to live to be happy again. It should have been them. 

There wasn't any ash here, the ceiling was white and not orange. He couldn't even imagine Aunt May dying in the same way as those on Titan, even with the knowledge dragging at his mind. It just didn't feel real. 

Except. 

Except that when they'd crumbled, they'd left nothing to hold on to, and that felt real enough, just the same on Earth as it had on Titan.

* * *

Nebula had lingered outside the door for a few uncomfortable minutes before working up the courage to actually enter. 

Planning had been easy. Battles and revenge were easy. Simpler, or more familiar to her than anything else waiting for her on the planet. 

She hadn't seen Peter Parker get the news of the death of his family and friends, but she thought she could imagine it. Because she'd seen Rocket's face as he watched the ship land. Then watched them leave, and waited for his friends, his family, to follow. And he'd waited, and he'd waited and he'd realised. 

There weren't words for the way he'd drooped, and turned away slowly, quietly so no one could notice him leave.

Yes, planning a way to kill Thanos and undo everything had been a nice distraction. She didn't believe it'd work, that kind of optimism had abandoned her long ago, but she was clinging to it all the same. 

Yet she didn't think she could leave without at least saying goodbye to the people she'd arrived with. Because she had grown attached, somehow, and she _cared_. 

Before she could make the decision to enter the room herself, the door opened, and Rhodes stepped out. He hesitated, seeing her hovering in the hallway. She watched his expression closely, seeing determination and sadness and fondness all at once. 

Stark had good friends, it seemed. 

"You were with them on the ship." Rhodes said, surprised. Then: "Thank you." 

He nodded, and moved past her, leaving the door open and the hallway empty. She didn't know what he was thanking her for, and he was gone before she could ask. It was a little surprising that she'd been left alone to visit the two; as far as she knew, there'd been someone there to keep them company, or almost stand guard. 

She'd seen the pain on Tony's face on that ship, she'd seen the way his friends glared at Steve Rogers. Any trust here, for her- a stranger, was a surprise, but a welcome one. 

But she entered the room, and blinked. She hadn't expected it to be like this. It was large, bright and clean. The complete opposite to the ship that had carried them to Earth. 

Stark brightened as she walked through the door, waving in greeting. There was a second hospital bed in the corner, neatly made and empty. No Peter. In a way, his absence was more jarring than the room itself, but it made a certain kind of awful sense. 

Tony watched her gaze flicker to the empty bed and sighed heavily. "Yeah, he isn't doing so good." 

Nebula thought of the sharp edge of every single memory of her sister, and thought she understood. "I can imagine."

Peter had lit up as he talked about his Aunt May and his friend Ned and they not-so-scary and kind-of-pretty MJ. The brightest lights left the longest shadows behind them. She'd seen the kid at his worst, and she didn't think that things had improved for him. 

On closer inspection, the table beside the bed was stacked with books that had to be gifts, because they looked very new, with a small lamp that she assumed that was for reading. 

Tony followed her gaze. "Yeah, Happy and the others picked those up for him. He's still having those nightmares. Sometimes he needs someone there to comfort him, so FRIDAY will wake me up, other times he feels too guilty to wake anyone else and just reads." Then the man stopped speaking, like he hadn't meant to say so much. 

Nebula suspected that it was a habit he'd kept from the ship, when he'd sat down with her and told her the best ways to comfort Peter if he was having a nightmare and Tony himself wasn't available or wouldn't be there in time. 

Still, as usual, there was something he hadn't said. Something that weighed heavily on him. She'd never have it told to her in words, but the missing fact was this: Peter couldn't stand to look at his phone as a distraction anymore, because he kept catching himself hoping for a text from Ned or MJ or May. 

That was something she'd missed from the ship, the way that they'd each realised what the other needed and done their best to help. Whether it was words or listening or distractions. Even she, the most brutal and blunt of them had done her best. It had felt, for a few moments, like she had been more than what Thanos had made her, and she had latched on to that feeling. That freedom. 

"You take good care of him." She noted, and her voice sounded rough in the quiet. She had meant it more as an observation rather than a reassurance, but Tony relaxed like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders all the same. 

"Are you taking good care of yourself?" Nebula asked, even if concern was clumsy and unfamiliar still, she refused to ignore it. Thanos would not take that from her.

There was a bitter chuckle. "You're all mother hens, honestly. The kid needs more support than I do." 

Nebula frowned. It was a dangerous expression. "You humans are odd. You both need help. Are you getting it?" 

"Okay, fine. I'll promise you what I promised Rhodey. And Happy. And Pepper. And Peter. I'll get help as soon as the doctors here say I can." 

She nodded, satisfied. "Good." 

"For someone who acts so scary, you're actually a giant softie." 

"How dare you." 

And that was the moment that Pepper Potts decided to enter the room. She stared back and forth between Tony and Nebula with an expression of almost comical confusion. 

Nebula decided to break the silence. She didn't know Pepper very well beyond the messages that Tony had left for her on the suit. But, she thought she had an idea of what might serve as a suitable greeting. 

"Your idiot partner has just promised to get help. Hold him to it." 

Pepper Potts had a very sharp, scary smile. Nebula almost admired it. 

It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

* * *

She found Peter in a room that was clearly meant to function as a gym. Training rooms, no matter the culture, the species or the planet, all had the same feel to them. This one, though, appeared a little destroyed. 

There were hooks on the ceiling, where it seemed that bags full of sand had once been hanging in one corner. 

She could tell that they'd been bags, and that there'd been sand or some sort of stuffing, because slumped against the wall were two bags, leaking their contents onto the dull floor.

Peter was huddled in the corner. He looked just as gutted as the bags. 

Just from his defeated posture, Nebula knew that he'd been sitting like that since he'd arrived. She understood it. There were some days where all her limbs were heavy and that tunnel stretched on, long and dark, with the ghost of her sister echoing in the shadows where she couldn't quite see. 

Moving seemed impossible on those days. Everything was heavy, a burden. She was no stranger to weights, but this type of pain dragged differently. It always did and it always would. 

So, she simply sat down next to him. 

"We leave tomorrow." She said. Greetings were a waste. They'd be no comfort here, and she'd been taught to be efficient. 

"You're going to undo everything he did?" The voice was hoarse, and Peter had turned to look at her through a tangle of messy curls. His eyes were rimmed red. He'd been crying. 

"We're going to try." She avoided the opportunity to promise like it was a physical blow. There was a part of her that was cruelly sensible and it doubted and it won. 

"Okay." She wasn't sure what she'd expected. A plea to join them. A wish of luck. A savage sort of thanks. Whatever the case, Nebula hadn't expected one so young to sound so tired. 

She supposed that Thanos had a way of breaking the young. 

They sat in silence, just as the boy had been before. The tunnel was long today. She could barely see the light. 

Tony had always let the boy decide what he needed, and it had worked. Nebula decided that the same would work here, and let him be the first to talk.

"Are you going to kill him?" 

"Yes. We are. I can promise that much." 

She couldn't promise that she'd be the one to strike the killing blow, because combat never had so clear a solution, but she knew that she wanted to be the one to kill Thanos. She knew that he wouldn't be leaving the encounter alive, and she imagined Gamora's face, and was glad for it. 

"Good." 

It should have sounded cold. The wish for death, for revenge was a bitter, and heavy thing, and it twisted and it shaped people into something cruel, something sharp. Nebula, of all people, would know. 

Peter Parker didn't sound cold, or bitter, or twisted. He sounded like a boy trying very, very hard to be brave.

* * *

While Nebula spoke to Peter, another conversation took place. It was one that turned both people into something cold and bitter and twisted. An old hurt turned gaping and fresh as soon as the door swung open. 

Tony's face had lit up- he'd thought it was perhaps Peter, returning early and he'd always tried to offer the kid a smile even when he couldn't muster up a spark of happiness as something reassuring, just in case it helped.

Steve Rogers watched a forced smile slip and fall, and crash into something ugly. 

He tried to be calm. He tried to apologise, perhaps. Maybe the words just sounded wrong, or were said in the wrong way at the wrong time. Too rehearsed, too loud in a quiet room and far, far too late. 

There was still a heart monitor hooked up to Tony's hospital bed, just in case, because there was no such thing as too careful in a world where every single life mattered more than ever. It's steady rhythm began to climb. 

Neither heard it over the yelling. 

Eventually, the doctors swarmed in, alarmed, and Captain America froze. He bowed his head and retreated from the room, letting the door slam shut behind him. 

The final words hung over him for the next few years, though, and they followed him down that hall and into space and into the garden and back to Earth. They'd been hissed with the exact same venom, born of the same hatred and hurt as they had been in a different world, a different time, when Tony's first words back on his own planet had been 'I lost the kid'. 

Because Tony had hurled insult after insult at Steve, hoping that each one would hurt, but no word quite scarred the way 'liar' did.

* * *

The stones were gone. Thanos died. There was nothing left to the survivors but moving on. 

Tony moved back to New York for the rest of his recovery. Pepper went with him, and Peter followed, although he'd already recovered and didn't know what to do with himself. 

He wandered the hallways like a ghost, and they let him. Tony was able to move, if slowly, and he was supposed to spend most of his days sitting, but he was fit enough to work. He and Pepper were soon busy, and there were stacks of paper, although smaller by far than some of what Peter had seen Mr Stark try and dodge by hiding in the labs. 

There was serious talk, too. Of how and why Pepper had deployed the spare suits and devices that Iron Man had made in case of a disaster. How Stark Tech had scooped up what falling planes they could after their pilots turned to ash. How his suits had held up buildings that would have crumbled otherwise, while what emergency services remained raced to free the people inside in time. 

'Going forward' and 'finding the right people' were words used a lot. Peter wasn't entirely sure what they were talking about, and wasn't sure that it was his place to ask. He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what they were doing and what the lines were anymore. 

He could have interrupted them. They would have made time for him, if he'd asked. If they'd known that comfort was what he needed, if it wouldn't be suffocating, then they would have dropped everything in a second. 

But he didn't ask. He was too scared of the answer. 

There was another question he didn't ask, for the very same reason. He didn't want to be forbidden from the one thing he felt he had left. 

When Ben had died, doing something, _anything_, had helped in some small way. It had hushed the memories that spoke through his thoughts like ghosts. And now, when his head was louder than ever, was when he needed Spiderman just as much as the people he'd save. 

And the city was full of people who needed saving. 

At night, when Tony slept to recover the strength he was still missing, and Pepper rested to recover the energy she'd spent working and working and working, Peter slipped into his suit, and stepped into the darkness. 

He'd wondered why FRIDAY or Karen hadn't told on him yet. Then, with a jolt he'd realised that the old protocols from before must be in place, where normally he'd be allowed to leave for patrols regularly. 

There was a pang of guilt in that storm of emotions tearing him up inside, that they trusted him enough to not bother to change the protocols, and that he was abusing that trust when it was one of the few things that remained of Before. But the need to be moving, the need to be Spiderman outweighed that guilt. 

A sad truth of the world that Peter Parker had learned far too early was that there were always people willing to hurt others. The city in the aftermath of the tragedy Thanos had heralded in was no different. 

More people than he remembered roamed the dark pathways. They were all looking for something, and they all returned because they never found it. 

The streets were full of people who'd lost their 'May's, their 'Ned's, their 'MJ's, and he'd swing by, ask if he could help with anything. Sometimes the answer was no, but he'd keep an eye out just to make sure they made it home safely. Sometimes the answer was yes, and he'd listen, or walk them to their house so they didn't have to feel as lonely. 

Sometimes he'd stop robbers, sometimes he'd stop thieves or muggers. Sometimes they were desperate, sometimes they were cruel. Sometimes, they were just sad. 

Spiderman had found the city waiting for him, where Peter Parker had found nothing. It was so much easier, so much nicer to be Spiderman. He could force away the memories of everyone who wasn't there anymore by helping others, even if the streets were full of the ghosts of them. 

(It wasn't just the streets. Their ghosts were everywhere.)

Of course, it wasn't going to last. Because Tony Stark was nothing if not careful, and Peter's safety and future were a priority, even with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Peter wasn't there for the simple exchange that exposed him, but it went like this: 

Tony had woken up from a nightmare of his own, which had in turn caused Pepper to wake up. He'd thought he'd lost Peter, that the boy had died far away and alone, and that Tony had only been notified afterwards, when it was too late and there was nothing he could do. 

He'd calmed down, it would be easy enough to check. He'd just ask FRIDAY where Peter was, figure out he was just really being paranoid, and then go back to sleep. 

Let it be said that Tony Stark was not expecting to hear that Peter was currently out, patrolling as Spiderman, and had one of the suits flying out in less than a second after he'd processed it. Pepper hovered nearby, watching and listening, but not saying anything as the suit searched. 

But Peter never knew any of that, he just heard the whine of repulsors, and watched the suit land gently on the roof next to him, and he waited for the anger, for the betrayal and the hurt. 

"You know, there are a number of ways in which to deal with insomnia and nightmares safely. Last time I checked, sneaking out to be a hero wasn't one of them." 

See, Tony _had_ been angry. He had been hurt, and most of all, he'd been worried. And he really had been planning a big angry lecture as he navigated the suit through the city, but then he paused. Remembered a conversation on a ship where the marks of the last time he'd spoken harshly still showed. 

Peter didn't apologise because he wasn't sorry for actually sneaking out. Instead: "You're not actually here, are you? Because you need to be resting and-" 

The suit's helmet opened to reveal nothing. Peter relaxed slightly and he couldn't see it, but Tony was rolling his eyes fondly. 

"And speaking of being here, care to explain yourself, Spiderman?" 

The teenager turned to stare at the sea of lights. There were fewer than he remembered, and he supposed that there were less people to fill houses, to turn on the lights. It was still easier to look at than the suit, still expecting an answer. 

That guilt was back again. He'd dragged Tony away from his responsibilities again, and he'd caused the man nothing but trouble and stress. The least he could do now was be honest. 

"Spiderman is all I have left." It had sounded bigger in his head, an inescapable truth. But on that rooftop, it just sounded small. 

Somewhere far away, Pepper took Tony's hand. 

"Peter-" 

"It's true. May's gone. Ned's gone. MJ, too. I don't even have a home anymore, Mr Stark. What else do I have left? Where else can I go?" He hadn't meant to shout. But the world was very big and scary with almost all the support he'd ever known being suddenly removed, and all he had left was a mess of anger and hurt. 

The suit blurred. A blob of red against a darkness smeared with lights. He turned away, determined to scrub away the tears before he started to cry properly. 

"Kid," a hollow suit reached out, then stopped, "you know you have a home with us for as long as you want it, right?" 

"I- what?" 

"Pepper and I- well, we aren't May. We'll never be May, but we're here for you. If you want a home with us, then you have it." 

It was one of those conversations that had been half-planned. Tony and Pepper had been talking about it, how best to ask Peter what he wanted. They'd been leading up to it, and Tony had never imagined that it would happen here, like this. 

Despite his best efforts, Peter was crying now. Properly, the kind of crying that shook the entire body and made breathing hard. 

"W-why? Why are y-you being so nice?" It took several tries to say. "I've done nothing but drag you away from more important things because you have to d-deal with me." 

This time, the suit did reach out, and it placed a hand on his shoulder. It was heavy and cold, not at all like a human hand, but it was a comfort all the same.

"Hey kid, do you remember the spaceship, the whole 'dealing with you' thing? That still stands." 

"Oh." 

The night sky was softening. Dawn was beginning to just brush the horizon. It was still dark, for now, but there was a promise that soon there'd be light, and things would look better. 

Peter shivered. 

"Come on kid, let's get you home." 

There was a choice, here. A home, and an offer. He thought of the ghosts in those streets, the ghosts in his thoughts, and then of the two people waiting for him. 

"Okay." 

And back at that house, Tony had dragged together a handful of Star Wars films, and Pepper had made him a mug of what Tony called 'horrifying overdose of sugar' and Peter called 'perfectly respectable hot chocolate'.

Things weren't okay yet, but they would be. Dawn broke over the city, and it felt like moving forwards.

* * *

In the end, Tony was the one who went to Peter's old home. He took Happy with him, and together, they confronted an empty apartment. 

Peter had decided not to go back to the house, and entering the apartment, Tony could see what he meant about ghosts. 

The door had been forced open before they arrived, which a sad looking woman from the first floor explained to them. Apparently, the disappearances had caused quite a panic, and so the residents that remained had raced through the building and hammered on every single door, only to find piles of ash. 

There were a lot of similar stories. 

He'd almost expected to see May on the couch, waiting to yell at him for putting her nephew in danger. He almost expected a younger, happier Peter to peer around a doorway and go wide eyed at the sight of them. 

Peter was currently far, far away, going through a list of possible therapists with Pepper. It had been a struggle to find a list that would be suitable, but Tony was optimistic that one would be a match. 

(Pepper had been very determined, and had also prepared a list for him. He'd grumbled and complained, but the thought of Peter and Pepper at least had him searching it.)

But still, there was something awful about being in a familiar place with the people that'd made it familiar gone. There were signs of them, little markers like graves- a pile of homework due just over two months ago left on a coffee table, a stack of dishes by the sink that were still unwashed. 

"Let's get this over with quickly." Happy said gruffly, and Tony couldn't agree more. 

They worked as fast as they could. Sweeping items into boxes, packing up things that obviously belonged to Peter to bring back with them, and it became easier, as the cluster of rooms started to look less like a home. 

The ghosts were packed away in boxes. 

("Don't bring back any Lego stuff," Peter had pleaded. "it's not really mine, anyway, it was Ned's and-"   
He hadn't needed to say anything else. It was something he and Ned had enjoyed together, and somewhere, that happiness had turned to pain. ) 

Soon, all that was left was a bookcase. 

"Do you think he'll need any of these for uh, school?" Happy asked, pulling a face. All schools had been shut since the day Thanos removed half the universe, and the discussions about how to operate a replacement system were still in progress. 

It was chaos. Teachers and students alike had been killed in astronomical masses. There wouldn't be any good way to send the teachers with the right qualifications to the right places, and no good way to get the students there. And if school hallways were as haunted as the streets and empty houses, Tony couldn't imagine anyone forcing their kids back there. 

He didn't envy the board discussing it. 

"I don't know. We'll just check them all and grab the ones that look nerdy." 

This proved to be fairly easy. It was a mess of genres and titles, some were clearly May's, some were clearly Peter's, and some they just had to guess with. But still, the task only took about twenty minutes, so Tony didn't mind. 

Until, of course, they got to the last book. It wasn't really a book, it was too big, it fit too awkwardly on the shelf, wedged in a corner. There was a fine layer of dust on it, and for a solid moment, neither of them could figure out what it was. 

Then Tony flipped it open, and immediately regret it. 

Peter grinned back from the page. A glossy photo captured what must have been a Halloween. A much younger Peter was proudly standing in red coloured cardboard, a crude imitation of the Iron Man suit, and clutching the hand of an unfamiliar adult. 

That must have been the Uncle Ben that Peter very carefully barely mentioned.

He closed the photo album with a snap. Happy had been glancing at the pages from over his shoulders and had the same stony expression. 

Peter had been trying and trying to outrun the ghosts, and the book had clearly been left there to be forgotten. It was full of memories, and had pain pressed between the pages. 

But the corners of it were creased, and the picture had beamed. It had been cared for, too. Peter had been torn at the thought of leaving everything behind too, and had just told Tony to take whatever he thought was best. 

Leaving it here felt wrong. To gather more dust amongst boxes full of items that'd once made up a home. 

He slipped it into the bag of books they were taking with them. 

"I can take it back here." Happy offered, once they were driving away and the apartment and all its ghosts were fading away behind them. "If... If... Well, you know." 

He did.

* * *

It took Peter a week to work up the courage to go through the boxes. Meanwhile, Tony arranged for all the locks in the building that had housed Peter's home to be replaced, and searched for properties that were further away from the city. 

He found the boy hunched over the book one afternoon. He hadn't opened it, but he'd wiped the dust away from the cover carefully, and had just stared at it. 

"Everything alright?" Tony had asked, before he'd seen what Peter was staring at. "Oh." 

There was a long moment of silence. Peter wasn't crying, he didn't look sad, he was just staring. Then, softly. "I haven't seen this since Uncle Ben died." 

Tony had realised that the photo album had been left there for a long time, but he hadn't really realised why. He had the sudden, distinct feeling that he'd really messed up this time. "We can take it back, if-" 

But Peter was shaking his head, clutching it tighter, although he didn't open it yet. "No! No, I... I don't want to lose it again." 

"That's okay, kid." Tony said, trying not to sound too relieved. Peter didn't open the album that day, or that month, and that was okay. 

Things were going to be okay.

* * *

Later, when people would visit the Stark household, they'd sometimes notice a bookshelf. The shelf itself was a mess of textbooks, crime novels, papers on engineering and picture books, and at the very end, there'd be a number of leather bound books that didn't quite fit.

If said visitor asked about these photo albums, they'd get treated to a sit down and excited or fond talk from whichever family members were present, and their visit would be extended by several hours longer than they'd planned. 

The first photos were from a childhood that Peter could never truly return to, but would treasure all the same. Ben and May and the days before a spider bite and days before a tragedy. 

There was a gap, a pause, where grief had settled in the pages. Time missed those pages.   
One day, Peter was a beaming child, and in the next photo, he was older, clinging to Ned as they smiled proudly at a Lego creation where it stood in front of them. If one looked carefully, there was a bruise just not quite covered by Peter's jumper. 

A lifetime had happened in between those photos. And even longer had happened between when the last photo of Ben Parker had been added and when Peter eventually worked up the nerve to travel into the city to find somewhere to print the photos from his phone from. 

(Tony had gone with him, and grumbled about how useless the machine was when the second one they used broke too. The second they returned, Tony had started building his own version so they wouldn't have to bother again.) 

There weren't many photos in the book for that time: in between the death of Ben and the death of May, but they were all happy ones. There was no hint of what would happen next. Just a selfie of Spiderman seeming to fly in the gap between two buildings, and Peter and Tony holding a certificate, grinning. 

These weren't ghosts. These were memories, and they were treasured. Kept safe in between covers. The good among the bad and the mix of happiness and sadness. 

The first photo from the After didn't include Peter, but it was taken by him. Pepper had just told them both that she was pregnant, that Tony would have a daughter and Peter would have a sister. 

Tony had looked so comically shocked, next to Pepper's calm, composed face, that Peter had pulled out his phone and had snapped a photo on reflex. 

Then, because he was Peter Parker, he proceeded to join Tony in freaking out while Pepper laughed at them, and forgot about the picture for the next three hours. He was excited and happy and nervous all at once, and in those moments, he didn't even think of the ghosts and the past. 

Later, he looked at the photo in his phone's gallery. With the help of his therapist, he was beginning to see the present as a beginning, as well as an ending. A future, emerging from a past. Looking at the shocked joy and fear on Tony's face, he could see it, too. A future, a beginning. 

He quietly printed it off, and added it to the book. Life went on.

* * *

Another photo that would stand out was of a group of young people, all around Peter's age. It was from when he'd first met up with the friends he'd made from school.

The situation of the education system had gone a bit like this: 

No matter how anyone argued it, there was no way to move the teachers that remained and the students that remained into areas where there could still be functioning schools. For one, it simply wouldn't be cost effective, and the other more important reason was that everyone had been deeply disturbed by the events following Thanos' slaughter, and everyone was still grieving. 

Moving them to hallways filled with ghosts and memories- many had still been in classrooms when it happened- was deemed to be too stressful of an idea. Mental health had become very, very important in the days after half the world turned to ash. 

So, after three months of deliberation and planning, they just changed the education system. Instead of physically attending schools, they made an online system. 

Six hours a day, students would log in, and teachers would record lessons per subject, students would watch from the comfort of their own homes and make notes., they could send questions in and the teachers could send answers back. Quizzes were online, tests were online. 

School buildings remained closed and empty. 

Children without good internet or a device that could connect were given one. Loans were set up (an idea that had received generous financial support from Stark Industries) to get them the support they needed. 

For the students, they aimed to promote some sense of normality by setting up chat rooms. For each subject, or each class, students could ask for help and discuss lessons. In true student fashion, the only discussion over lessons was complaining, and the chats dissolved into a mess of memes and sharing answers. 

It was surprisingly easy to make friends, when everyone was in the same boat and felt like they were sinking, because everyone wanted something to cling to. Peter would never find a friend quite like Ned again, and his friends would never really find anyone like the people they remembered, either.

But they all had each other, and things were going to be okay, eventually. One day, it would stop feeling like a betrayal to move on, but until then, they shouldered that burden together, and soldiered on.

* * *

After hours of school, Peter would work with Tony in the smaller, but no less wonderful lab. Teaching was never something Iron Man thought he'd be good at, but it turned out that he excelled. 

There were some things, though, that he would never be able to teach. Like good taste in music. 

After Peter got the hang of whatever skill Tony had just shown him, he'd get FRIDAY to blast some music while they worked in silence. Normally, it was AC/DC.   
Each time, without fail, Peter would turn to Tony with a grin, and yell, just loud enough to be heard 'I love Led Zepplin' just to watch the despair wash over his mentor's face. Each time, the music would dim and Tony would splutter indignantly, while Peter pretended to be deaf. 

Pepper had once walked in to see what the fuss was about, just in time to see Tony's angry face and Peter's smug smile, and had managed to get a picture of it. She'd slipped it into the book without comment, and had then watched with a smile when Peter discovered it next time he took the book from the shelf to look at it.

* * *

When asked, Peter would struggle to describe his grief and what it felt like, but he eventually came up with this analogy: clouds. 

Sometimes, there was a sky, and it was clear and bright. Those were the good days, where there were no ghosts, no memories and he felt like he was moving on. 

Other times, there were clouds on the horizon. Far away and manageable, but still they loomed, and he could see them. He could feel them, and those days were colder. There was always a threat of a storm, somewhere at some point. These were the most common type of days in the year following his return from Titan. 

And the worst days were storms. The sky would be completely covered in dark, rolling clouds, and the rain would come, and it would be so heavy that he'd struggle to remember what a clear sky felt like, what the colours were. Thunder would roar in headaches and lightning would come in flashes of memories. 

On those days, he'd curl up on a sofa, Pepper would take his temperature, just to be safe, then bring him a blanket. He'd take the book then, and flick through it again and again until the rain stopped. 

He'd start at the beginning, and he'd move through it all. Each loss, each photo, to remind himself that he could do it, he could survive this, and the sky would be clear again.   
Always, he'd linger on one photo in particular. 

Happy had taken this one. It was in a crowded hospital room, and it was the day that Morgan Stark had been born. Tony had been a blur of motion, pacing and asking questions, asking if Pepper needed anything. Rhodes had been torn between sympathy and amusement, and Happy had been the one to check up on them all. 

Even in the picture, Tony seemed torn between checking on Pepper, staring at Morgan and checking on Peter. And Peter, in the photo, was holding a bundle of blankets very, very carefully like he was terrified he'd drop them. 

He was staring at his little sister like the whole world revolved around her, and it had been the brightest day he could remember.

* * *

Colleges opened again for new admissions a year after the Slaughter, which wasn't too big of a concern for Peter, because it seemed so far away. He'd never really imagined a future of applying without May's careful guidance, Ned's steady reassurance and MJ's biting comments.

But the future was suddenly _here_, crashing down on him and he had no idea what to do with it. His dreams from before had seemed very small, and so insignificant in the face of everything he'd lost.

It was like he'd discarded those goals, too. 

But, he'd look at Morgan, happily building a tower of blocks in a corner of the room, he'd look at Pepper typing away at a laptop, he'd look Tony stumbling from the lab to the coffee pot, and he'd see his family and all he had to gain. 

A future. 

Before he knew it, he was looking at colleges and application processes and quietly stressing over every small detail. He wasn't alone, those chat rooms he'd met his friends in were alive with panic. 

Pepper helped the second she saw him quietly staring at a college website until his eyes watered. She sat down next to him, made a spreadsheet, and after that, looking at college entry requirements became a family thing. 

Which was good, because there was a lot of things to consider.

Suddenly, grades mattered more than ever and school had never been so trying. (Quietly, he took a small guilty moment to be glad he wasn't Spiderman at the moment, because this was difficult enough without being sleep deprived from patrolling.)

Tony told him to relax. Tony told him that he'd get in just fine. Tony, in Peter's opinion, was far too calm. 

Tony was the furthest thing from calm when Peter's acceptance email from MIT arrived. Rhodes had been visiting to see Morgan, and he happened to walk into the room at exactly the right moment.

There had been a chirp of a notification, and Peter had stared at his laptop like it was haunted. Tony had sighed. "You know, you can't be scared to open all your emails now. It's probably nothing." 

Peter had rolled his eyes, which had made Rhodey snort. Then Peter froze, eyes wide at he stared at the screen. 

"Told you it was noth- kid?" 

The look of realisation on his face was a slow, painful thing. 

"Well shit, it's here. Open it." 

"But... But what if I don't get in?" 

"Peter, kid, you don't do anything but work these days. There's no chance you didn't get in." Tony scoffed, but his face was pale and he was hovering beside Peter. 

Once, Rhodes thought, Tony had been so insistent that he'd never have kids. 'Just not for me', his friend had said, 'not with my past, not with my present- the hero life really doesn't leave much time for anyone else'. But here he was, father of two. It suited him. 

"But I still might not have-" 

"You have, stop worrying." 

"But-" 

"And even if by some massive stretch of logic, you haven't actually got in, then there are plenty others. Seriously, kid, Pepper and I will be proud either way, so stop worrying."   
Peter did not look like he had stopped worrying. Rhodes actually witnessed the kid beam at the word 'proud', watched Peter turn back to the screen, then deflate.

"Can... Can you open it for me?" 

"You used to fight muggers every night." Tony reminded his kid as he leaned over to click the button anyway. Peter was already looking ill. 

Rhodes held up his phone. 

Tony read it faster, so his expression morphed into a huge proud smile just as Peter's mouth fell open in shock.

It was an absolutely beautiful photo. So was the one next to it, where Peter had managed to knock everything over by leaping out of his chair with a massive cheer. 

And the one after that, where the whole family plus Rhodes were huddled around a grinning Peter.

* * *

Tony was trying very, very hard not to cry. 

Logically, there was no reason to be sad. This was good! Peter had managed to make it in to his dream college! His first choice! 

His friends were going there too. He was going to be happy, he was going to be successful. He was going to be Spiderman again, and his kid would have everything he'd ever wanted, and that was all Tony had wanted, too. 

There wasn't even anything to worry about anymore. 

Peter was determined to be Spiderman again once he returned to a more urban area. Even though there was a very real risk that someone would soon figure out that the hero was a student, which meant he was that much closer to being exposed, his kid was determined. 

Tony wasn't too concerned about that, though. See, Spiderman had been there for a great number of people in the months where it had mattered the most, and humans remembered that sort of thing. 

Where the hero was known, he was loved. He'd been there when none of the other Avengers had, in a way that none of them had been, and that was enough. That was more than enough, because everyone had lost someone due to Thanos, and although they never said it, everyone knew that Spiderman had lost someone, but he'd still made the time to be there for everyone else.

It made quite the impression. 

Peter had started messaging his roommate and they'd already met before they were due to move into the dorms, so there was nothing to worry about there. They were already pretty good friends. 

There was no fanfare, no media attention. Tony Stark adopting a kid had been buried in the aftermath of the Slaughter, people had noticed it, but they had more important things to worry about. 

And Peter had kept his last name, so there would be no reminders for anyone looking to flog a dead horse. Not that he thought it would be a problem. No one had the energy to bother with other people's families. 

Peter was an adult now, and Tony could barely believe it. He didn't look like an adult as he stared around the dorm he'd be living in. He looked like a very small, very nervous child. But then, Tony supposed that to him and Pepper and Rhodes and Happy, that Peter would always look like a child. 

Pepper and Morgan had already gone back to the car after having helped Peter unpack most of his stuff, but Tony had made an excuse to linger. He could barely believe it had come to this already, that his kid had grown up so fast. 

"I'll be visiting as soon as I can." Peter told Tony like he was reassuring anyone except himself. Who was Tony kidding? He was already counting down the days until that visit. 

"Good." Tony responded in an equally strained voice. "You'd better call every day, otherwise I'll fly here in the suit and-" 

"And that really wouldn't be good for your back? You need to be careful in your old age." Peter nodded understandingly. 

Tony pretended to scowl. "Can't believe I thought I'd miss you, Mr Parker." 

And then Peter was crying and clinging to Tony, and Tony was most definitely crying now, although he'd told himself he wouldn't. (Rhodes had told him he would cry. Pepper had told him he would cry. Happy had just looked at him and rolled his eyes. Even Nebula had managed to send a message saying that he'd cry.) 

"I'll call home every day." Peter promised. 

"Good." 

And then he was walking back towards the car where Pepper and Morgan waited, and Peter was walking back into his dorm to greet his roommate, who'd just arrived. There was no denying that the kid from Queens was growing up. 

Later that evening, Tony would sit down with Morgan and Pepper, and they'd look through the photo albums Peter had insisted on leaving behind so they didn't get lost or damaged, because already the house felt quieter, emptier. 

And Peter would go back to unpack the last of his stuff, to find the extra copies of his favourite photos from Tony, the cluster of drawings from Morgan and the cookbook from Pepper and he'd smile and feel just a little bit less homesick.

* * *

Not two weeks after Peter had settled into MIT, Spiderman was back in business. Almost overnight, there were dozens of theories that he was a new student at the college, which the institution refused to comment on. 

Tony had seen it coming, but still, the details of Spiderman's fights were like a slap in the face. He was fighting again. He was losing sleep. He was out there and it was dangerous. Again, logically he knew that Peter was probably more dangerous than anything else in the entire city, since he hadn't stopped practicing fighting, and Happy and sometimes Nebula would drop in to teach him.

But still.

"Is this how you felt?" He asked Pepper mournfully. She nodded sagely, skim reading the article. Her face flickered between concern, then concentration, then resignation. It was a cycle that Tony would be very familiar with by the end of just a month of Peter being a hero again. 

"Karen hasn't reported any injuries, so he's probably fine." She reminded Tony gently. She was right. The kid was an adult now. He could handle himself. He would be fine, Tony just needed to stop worrying. There was no reason to worry. 

He still ended up having FRIDAY search for whoever would be in charge of looking for Spiderman just in case, and then spent a good ten minutes laughing in relief. See, the woman had been mentioned only a few times in articles and sites that tracked what Spiderman had done, and once, years ago, she'd lost her son in the streets of New York, to find a hero keeping him safe.

And she hadn't forgotten it, either. As long as she was in charge, Peter's identity was safe.  
Still, Tony had resigned himself to a lot of grey hairs and sheepish calls from Peter. His stories always excited Morgan though, because both his kids had no sense of danger whatsoever. She'd get the abridged version, without the injuries and the extreme violence and the stress. A brighter version, for now.

For the next generation, the one who'd survived Thanos, the world would be a brighter place. Those who knew of loss and had seen it ruin their childhoods would see to it that their children wouldn't have any extra reasons to mourn, if they could. A future had been all they had left, and it was a future they were going to give. 

And Tony? 

Tony had been given the chance to watch his kid grow up, and that was all he'd ever asked for. Peter would never find himself stranded somewhere unfamiliar, feeling planets away, with nothing to go home to. 

It wasn't perfect, but it was more than enough.


End file.
